IAS officer traumatised after Aarey green activists makes her number public

Ashwini Bhide managing director of Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation MMRCMetro rail chief Ashwini Bhide has suffered a nasty jhatka for the past fortnight after her phone got flooded with calls from citizens protesting against Metro III It was nonprofit organisation Jhatkaorg that allegedly provided the phone number and appealed to the protesters to call Bhide to express their objections The IAS official claimed she received hundreds of calls leaving her unable to use her phone or focus on workAarey Colony is an ecologically sensitive area that is home to diverse wildlife including leopards File picAshwini Bhide managing director of the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation MMRC claimed that since January 12 she got hundreds of calls from strangers criticising the authorities decision to build the Metro shed in Aarey Fed up she has now registered a complaint with the Mumbai policeSources revealed that when she started getting the calls it was from one particular number which she subsequently blocked But soon after she started receiving calls from another number Bhide blocked that number too as well as a third number from which the calls started yet again Bhide then tried switching off her cell phone after which her office landline started ringing Eventually Sanjay Dani a a retired ACP and MMRCs security consultant approached Bandra Kurla Complex police station to lodged a complaint on behalf of BhideModus operandimidday had earlier reported on the call campaign which is being led by Jhatkaorg The organisation has been hired by the citizens forum Aarey Conservation Group ACG According to the police the campaigners circulated a message appealing to people to call on a particular number to mount pressure on Bhide over the Aarey issue If the caller is unable to talk with Bhide they get a message of protest that they can then forward to her cell phoneThe police said that this kind of operation is called a Denialofservice DoS attack A DoS attack typically floods servers systems or networks with traffic in order to overwhelm the victims resources and make it difficult or impossible to use themConfirming the development Kalpana Gadekar senior inspector at BKC police station said We have registered an FIR against unidentified persons under Sections 186 of the IPC and 43 and 66 of the Information Technology Act It is a sort of DoS attack and we are investigating further Despite repeated attempts to contact Bhide she remained unavailable for commentThe other sideYash Marwah a volunteer from ACG said We launched two campaigns with the help of Jhatkaorg one was a missed call campaign and the second was a targeted call campaign In the second campaign we targeted the Chief Minister Suburban Collector and MMRCs Managing DirectorOf the three the call would be redirected to whoevers phone was not busy This call campaign was only for two days mdash on January 18 and 19 If indeed people have been calling even before that then maybe the authorities should have a public debate with citizens about AareyAvijit Michael a trustee from jhatkaaorg said We started this campaign around twoandahalf weeks ago The public are voicing their opinion as there has been no public consultation on the matter which the authorities are legally bound to do During this campaign Bhide may received around 200 calls The campaign is still onCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news current affairs from Mumbai local news crime news and breaking headlines hereDownload the new midday Android and iOS apps to get updates on all the latest and trending stories on the go